


You've Got a Second Chance (Go Home, Escape It All)

by sweeterthankarma



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Post-Season/Series Finale, happiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 06:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18805504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweeterthankarma/pseuds/sweeterthankarma
Summary: Riley has been home for four and a half weeks and hasn’t dealt with a single bad dream, and maybe that should scare her— normally it would— but with her father cooking breakfast downstairs and her love dreaming peacefully by her side, she is anything but afraid.





	You've Got a Second Chance (Go Home, Escape It All)

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the song "Medicine" by Daughter.

For someone like Riley, waking up in her childhood bed after a night free of nightmares feels a too good to be true. Actually, she’s been home for four and a half weeks and hasn’t dealt with a single bad dream, and maybe that should scare her— normally it would— but with her father cooking breakfast downstairs and her love dreaming peacefully by her side, she is anything but afraid. 

She’s fallen in love with Iceland again and she’s fallen in love  _ in  _ Iceland again. She never imagined she’d be fortunate enough to be home and not be overcome with the need to leave at any and every given moment; she had become so regretfully attuned to that urge, to that sadness that always lingered but felt especially strong whenever she was on the island’s geography. Every time she had wandered the familiar backstreets of  Reykjavík she had considered how easy it would be to leave, and more times than she can count, she  _ had  _ left. Even the last time she was here, when she finally thought she was okay enough to stay, she ended up having to flee to The Netherlands, thanks to Will. So it makes sense, really, for her to have felt the need to escape to somewhere presumably safer. Now, without that instinct, she feels a little bare, if she’s honest.

But she’s never felt so alive, either. 

Riley is healthy and breathing and safe and her Will, just as receptive to the relief as she is, makes every night and morning — and really every second of the day — a celebration of how far they’ve come. The whole cluster follows suit because they all live like that now , taking every chance, going for every opportunity, living to the fullest because by now they have too much to lose to ever not dare to be brave. 

On mornings like these— Riley’s favorite— Will will rouse beside her, usually at the same time she does but sometimes a little after, and he’ll  press kisses onto her lips and trace them across her neck and she’ll melt a little more into the warm sheets around them. She never wants to get out of bed, but in this way, it’s out of peace and comfort, not depression. It’s a beautiful contrast. 

So much of life is beautiful, Riley has found, and so much of it she has known; so much she used to be able to cherish but then she had forgotten. Now, though, she remembers. 

She wakes up to beauty every morning when Will is beside her, pressed against her bedsheets as he smiles the way he always does, in that boyish way that makes her heart pound and her stomach flip and make every cell in her body feel alive, alive,  _ alive.  _ And when he climbs on top of her, cradling her head in his hands and mumbling loving musings, mostly in English but some in Icelandic — because whatever she knows, he knows, and the reverse is true, too, of course— she feels even more alive.  Eventually, once he’s taken his time, he’ll sink into the space between her hips, giving and needing and taking only what she’s willing to offer and never anything more, though she wants to give him everything — the moon, the stars, everything the galaxy has to offer, she thinks he should have it. He, more than anyone, deserves it. 

    “No, you do,” he mumbles against her hair, and she smiles. 

Riley never thought she’d let herself fall again, not like this, and certainly not here. 

But she doesn’t regret a thing — how could she?— and Will knows what this means to her. Here, they’re together, and it’s not just a place, not just a dot on a map; it’s a mindset, it’s a darkness, it’s a tragic black hole that she’s letting him into, allowing him to stay in, and he’s bringing out all of the light she’d forgotten was hidden here. 

Will’s fingertips skim against the sensitive skin of her waist and she laughs freely, grinning so hard her cheeks hurt when he pulls her closer. Here, in same bed she had sobbed in and spent days in without leaving, here when she’d woken up in cold sweats, relishing the brief second when she woke up and forgot about what she had lost — here, now, all she can think about is what she’s gained.

Her father must know how she’s feeling, because he’s been wearing non-stop smiles every day and preparing extravagant breakfasts for the three of them every morning. 

    “Papa,” Riley says in admiration when she comes down the stairs and sees today’s first meal spread out across the counter. She greets him with a kiss on the cheek and warm arms around his shoulders, though she says, “you don’t have to cook for us every morning, you can sleep in and let us do it sometimes, too.”

Gunnar chuckles. “I know, but I can’t help myself. It’s too nice to have you home, and I know how much you love pancakes, so it’s the least I can do.” 

Riley thanks him as she loads up a plate full of syrup and fruit, and then she pokes Will on the shoulder. He’s upstairs, still half-asleep as he brushes his teeth even though it’s already past eleven, but he perks up when she says, “you better hurry or I’m going to eat all the pancakes.”

His eyes widen. “Pancakes again?” he asks, clearly not complaining, and Riley nods, chuckling. 

Gunnar places his hand atop hers and she’s back in the kitchen now, leaning against the counter.

    “Riles, I’ve gotta say,” he starts, “it’s so good to have you home, but even better to have you be home and be happy.”

Gunnar continues as he sets the table, putting out three plates rather than just two, and Riley can see the light in his eyes, constantly visible now, due to this change. Her father loves Will, and Will loves her father, and Riley really doesn’t know how to handle how good everything around her is.

    “Not to get too sappy too early in the morning, but it’s clear to see that you don’t walk around on eggshells anymore, that you’re not afraid to be here, and it’s a beautiful thing to see.”

He walks around the table to put down the final plate and wraps Riley up in his arms again, planting a lingering kiss to the top of her head.

    “Thanks, Papa,” Riley answers, sighing into the familiarity of his embrace. He goes back to making more pancakes and doesn’t ask for an elaboration, but Riley explains herself, wanting her father to know that she’s more than just okay for...well, maybe the first time in forever.

    “You know, for the longest time I didn’t feel like I could move on from what happened here, and I didn’t feel like I should,” she admits, resting her chin on her elbows and watching her father add a little cinnamon to the pancakes, his secret ingredient. He nods along a little sadly as she speaks, understanding. 

    “I was sure that I was going to spend my life dwelling over tragedy, and that would be that, and I had made peace with it, honestly. I thought that was just how I would be.”

Gunnar’s frown doesn’t fade.

    “But then, things changed.” 

As if on cue, like he always is, Will appears in Riley’s peripheral vision, putting away the towel he had just washed his face with.

    “I met people,” she says, speaking from both the kitchen and the bathroom. Will smiles, and so do the others ; Nomi, Lito, Capheus, Kala, Sun, Wolfgang, her  _ family,  _ they surround her with kind, understanding eyes because truly, no one can understand her more than they can.

    “ And I met Will,” Riley continues, reaching for his hand and encouraging him to join her downstairs, “and I learned how to love and how to be loved in ways I never thought were possible.”

    “Literally,” Will adds, cracking a smile, and all the others do, too. They know exactly what he means — for better and worse, for the good and the bad and the embarrassing, they are there through it all.

    “That’s so great, Riles,” Gunnar says, bringing Riley back downstairs. She pokes at a piece of strawberry,  tears brimming in her eyes just enough to be noticable, and she sniffles, fighting it back though she knows there’s no need to. She senses Will stalling in the stairwell, maybe feeling the reverberations of her emotions as all the others do, or maybe just giving her time to finish the conversation. Either way, Gunnar’s eyes are on her, as filled with hope as they are with regret and sorrow — and she knows, he wishes he could take her past pain away, bring her mother and Magnús and Lúna back and relieve Riley of her senseless guilt. She’ll never not wish that he could change things, that anyone could somehow change things and reduce the pain, but now at least she knows how to live with the fact that no one can.

    “And now I’m not afraid to be here,” she says finally, concluding her thought. Gunnar grins.

    “I think  _ that  _ deserves another pancake,” he says, and before she can protest — not like she would— he reaches over with a spatula to add other fresh one to her plate.

    “I agree,” Will says from behind her shoulder, leaving a quick kiss and the ghost of a chuckle on the corner of her neck before vanishing, only to come down the stairs seconds later. 

    “Right on time!” Gunnar says when he arrives, and he pulls Will into a half-hug like he always does, slinging his arm around his shoulders before inviting him to grab as much food as he likes. Riley smiles at him the whole time he does so.

That night , just like every other night,  Will holds her tight like the world depends on it even as her mattress stretches out lengthily on either side of them, and she thinks of how fortunate she is to know all of this love: from him, from her father, from her cluster and their extended circle of family and friends, from  Magnús  and Sven and even Yrsa , because like Capheus’s mother, Riley decides then and there that she has no room in her heart for hate.

She’s never going to be able to change the past. But for now, she allows herself to appreciate the present— and the future. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr under the same username, sweeterthankarma.


End file.
